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Liminal Worlds, a look at reality

Liminal Worlds, a look at reality

Beyond South Brooklyn

Trestle Gallery presents Liminal Worlds with work by Ashley Hope, Elizabeth Insogna, Anne Polashenski and Greg Thielker with an opening reception on Friday, April 27, from 7pm to 9pm, continuing through June 6, 2018.

Liminal Worlds features the work of four artists who examine the thin and tenuous line dividing the many realities that we experience as part of the human condition. Anne Polashenski and Greg Thielker consider notions of self and other through ethnography, immigrant experiences, and national borders. Ashley Hope and Elizabeth Insogna delve into the interconnectedness and elusiveness of the spirit realms and afterlife. Collectively these artists become guides for us to venture through their artworks into territories that are filled with contemplation, politics, and deeper capacity for self-awareness.

Ashley Hope uses laser-etched CCTV images burned into maple wood to capture and immortalize the last traces of missing human figures. The reductive process of burning the wood away reinforces the theme of presence and absence, ultimately creating a tangible marker of loss. Her decorative hand additions to the sometimes glitched camera images draw from the early Christian/Byzantine artistic tradition of using geometric patterns to represent an unknowable higher power, and materials like gold leaf to indicate a spiritual or otherworldly presence.

Elizabeth Insogna works through iconography of Goddess reverence and ideas of the Divine Feminine to highlight a Queer perspective in the dialogue of female power. Her work straddles the world of ancient spirituality and contemporary body politics. Insogna’s devotional ceramic cauldrons reference scrying - an ancient form of divination, are paired with colorful abstract and symbolic figurative paintings to evoke a history of ritual practice.

Anne Polashenski mines her family’s Polish immigrant history to uncover an autobiographical connection that comprises both feelings of American identity and otherness. Through a range of media including gouache and C-printing, her artwork collages traditional patterns - a sort of camouflage - with domestic, grotesque, and alien imagery with an emphasis on blending in and survival. In these works, Polashenski attempts to understand and recreate historical connections that were not present in her childhood as her grandparents strove towards American assimilation.

Gregory Thielker’s work is shaped by the arbitrary nature of territory and memory. In these paintings from his series Unmeasured, his hyper-realistic transcription of physical sites centers on the border between Mexico and the US, offering a critical and contemplative glance at border politics. His use of actual dirt from the sites he visits as paint pigment enforces the solidity and permanence of these places and connection to the images he makes. The nation state border is defined by a wall built in various parts, protruding like a sculptural artifact from the landscape, and that continues to be an object of political division.

Coinciding with the exhibition, Trestle is pleased to host the panel discussion “Liminality in Art: Art as Ritual” with the curator and artists in the exhibition on Tuesday, May 8th, at 7pm.

In a ritual setting, liminality is a state of ambiguity and/or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of a ritual. It is the state between pre-ritual status, but before the post-ritual status is conferred. For many artists making artwork is a form of ritual, Hope, Insogna, Polashenski, and Thielker, perform various rituals in the making of the artworks in Liminal Worlds. Join us for an interesting and lively discussion on the creative practice, art as ritual, and the fine lines that are divisive, dangerous, and crossed with fluctuating ease and difficulty.

Trestle Gallery in Gowanus, Brooklyn

Trestle Gallery was founded in 2012 by artist and educator Rhia Hurt and a team of artists including Mary Negro and Ajit Kumar. Working in Gowanus, they became involved with the local artist community and soon discovered that many of their peers were lacking a supportive environment to develop their work and make connections with others in the art world. Wanting to meet this need, they started Trestle Gallery and began developing exhibition and educational programs with the goal of supporting local artists, curators, and educators and reach a greater community. The name “Trestle” came from a type of structure built to pass over obstacles. Like its namesake, the gallery was designed to be a support for artists, providing opportunities for them to show their work, network, and learn from each other.

Trestle Gallery and its satellite location, Trestle Projects, host 15-20 exhibitions each year. Since being established as a non-profit art gallery in 2012, Trestle has showcased the work of over 2000 local and international contemporary artists from over 35 countries. Trestle welcomes over 6,500 visitors annually.